Ready or Not....Time to Eat

Allie was watching Sophie the other day while I jumped in the shower.   When I came out I could here the girls in Allie's room.  I heard Sophie making some noises and I could hear Allie being "motherly" to her.  I peaked in from Allie's doorway without her knowing I was there

Allie was playing house with Sophie and had all of her tea set stuff set up on the table. Allie was pretending to make some food for Sophie and was pretending to feed her.

Open wide Sophie....here comes some yummy food.  The funny thing was that Sophie was opening up for Allie every time the spoon was coming up to her mouth.   I guess Sophie is gearing up for the good stuff and telling us she's getting ready for the real deal.  Hopefully the girls keep on pretending and practicing because I think I'm waiting till Sophie is 6 months old until we start that good stuff rice cereal.

Big Sister

Allie....I have got to write about what a great girl you are.  I have had so much fun with you lately and you are constantly making me laugh.  You are such a HUGE help with Sophie.  I know that you are only 4 and I try not to take advantage of you, but most of the time you are helping me without even being asked.  I will say, "I'm going to run and grab a burp rag for Sophie."  You tell me "NO....Don't move......Don't look.....I'll be back."  Then a minute later you are back with a burp rag.  You are always trying to make Sophie happy when she is sad.  You are always carrying her around and I have given up trying to have you not carry her around because it doesn't work and you are so good with Sophie that I don't even worry anymore.  You are a natural little mommy.



Hanging out with your little sis

Making me laugh when I walked into Sophie's room to find you up in the bumbo



One fun thing that we are working on right now is reading.  You are super interested in trying to sound out words.  You started out by first sounding out the letters, but you could never put it together to make a word.  For example, "RUN" would be "RU" "U" "NNN."  It has been quite the process and has taught me a lot of patience.  Sitting with you while you repeatedly sound out a simple word, but are not able to put it together was so frustrating for me.  But then one day it clicked and it was so rewarding to watch the light bulb in your head go off.  The first book that we were reading was Go, Dog. Go.  Your first word that you put together was "run."  You put together quite a few small words in the book and you were so proud of yourself.

One funny instance from the other day was when you were trying to sound out the word "as."  Well you can only guess how that one turned out.  You kept saying, "aaaa"  "ssss"  and in my head I was like, yes "as" is it.  Then after a few times of repeatedly saying it, out came the word "ass" from your mouth.  I burst out laughing and ran to tell daddy your new word:)

You just melted my heart the other night.  Daddy was gone for the evening and I was busy trying to square Sophie away for the night but wanted to come and snuggle with you.  You told mommy that you were going to your room to wait for me and when I walked into your room and found you snuggled up asleep in your bed  it made me tear up.  I guess one because you are such a great kid, and two that you are old enough to just go get yourself in bed and put yourself to sleep.  The fact that you are growing up and don't need me makes me sad, but so happy that you are so independent and learning so many new things.  I love you Al!!!

3 Months Old

Do I dare say that I finally love my baby!  Sophie has been an especially difficult newborn to say it frankly, she has had such a sad life with her belly and reflux issues, she was constantly wearing a frowny face.  I am not a fan of the newborn stage and love when I finally get a response that there is a sign of life in my babies.   Sophie has made it to that stage!!!   She has been up to quite a bit just this last week.  She started smiling  awhile ago but they were pretty infrequent.  Now, she is constantly smiling all day long.  It makes me happy to see her smile; because of all her tummy issues it just makes me think she is at least enjoying life a little bit more.  She also just over the last week has started to hold on to toys, started to roll onto her side and has come very close to getting herself onto her belly.  The best present she gave me last night for Valentines Day was she started to laugh hysterically.  It was so cute and it was over the dumbest thing but she just kept laughing at me.  It was so cute!!!  My favorite thing that you are doing is cooing, if I call it that.  You love to tell your stories to mama and I love to sit and listen to you tell them to me.  Here are a few favorites pics of you lately.  

Laying around "talking at mama"

Sitting around enjoying life without a frown

I love your chunkiness, I don't think Allie was ever this chunky.  I think I have found myself nursing you just to console you because you haven't taken a binky, so the extra milk has chunked you up

You also just started to splash your feet in the water during your baths.  You love your tubby time!

My favorite thing about getting your hair wet is the fun " curly horns" I can make with your hair on the sides.  Your hair is so long; (it's thinning out) it is long enough we can put berets in it

Rolling onto your side after the bath

Just a cutie

Since you don't take a binky I have tried to get you to attach to something; words of advice from the wise.  Well a good friend gave you "Ele" as we call her.  You attached to this thing from day one.  You love to suck on her ears, chew on the trunk and rub her silky blanket across your face.  In fact, you love it so much mommy bought a few more to have as back-up.  You always calm down immediately when you have Ele close by

We never had a bumbo around when we had Allie so I am not quite sure when to start putting you in this, but we got it out the other day

You liked for all about 5 minutes and then weren't having it.  Guess we'll try again later.  Sophie I am so glad that you are getting to be a happier girl.  I love you so much and I am so glad to have you in my life.

Logan Trip

There were a few members of Blake's extended family that hadn't met Sophie, including his grandpa, so we took off to Logan for a a road trip to visit and show off little Soph  

Allie ready for the drive with her cozy pillow....I can't believe how big you look in your car seat.

We arrived in Logan Friday night and did some visiting over at Grandpa's for a short amount of time.   We then headed out to Skyview High School to watch the play "Wizard of Oz" they were putting on.  Blake's cousin Michael was playing the part of the wizard.  It was an AWESOME play.  Seriously, you would have never known that a high school had put the play on.  The costumes were extravagant, they brought in a fly system and had the witches, fairy princess, and Dorothy flying through the air.  It was amazing and Allie loved it, up until about the last 30 minutes when she was so tired and so hungry.  We weren't expecting the play to last 3 hours and hadn't grabbed dinner before going, so combining these two factors together, Allie wasn't too happy by the end. 

Saturday we woke up and Blake and Allie took a swim at our hotel pool.  We then loaded up and headed to Grandpa's to visit; we spent the whole afternoon hanging out at grandpas.

It's always nice to go on a vacation where there isn't a lot to do.....the girls and I did a lot of goofing around and playing together while Blake was chatting away with grandpa

Sophie did not do so well on the trip.  I love this picture of her on Grandpa's retro green chair; such a sad story to tell.  Sophie will only take naps in her swing when we are at home and that is pretty much the only way she will fall asleep.  Well, without it, she was not wanting to give it up and take a nap.  She was overly exhausted by around 3 in the afternoon and finally got a cat nap in.  She wasn't wanting to nurse even though she needed to because she was so exhausted.  

Allie decided that if Sophie got her picture in the green chair, she wanted hers too

Saturday night we headed over to Blake's cousins house to hang out with her family for a little while.  Sophie again was overly tired and was freaking out at their house.  Bless their heart, they went and dug their swing out of the basement and Sophie was finally asleep for over an hour.  We enjoyed some pizza and company over at their house and Allie played with her "new best buddy-Kamden."

Sunday we enjoyed hanging out at grandpa's after church and spent the rest of the day there before our adventure back home began

We drove around after church to get Sophie to sleep and she ended up getting in a good nap

The girls hanging out at grandpas

Sophie and her cute smiles

Can you tell we had lots of time for taking pictures and how can you resist when you get cute faces like these

The girls with Great Grandpa Lyman

Sophie is almost 3 months old and is starting to hold onto toys.  It's the phase where they are hanging on but they don't know how to let go, so they whack themselves with the toy.

We ended up having a family dinner at Grandpa's Sunday afternoon and decorated some Valentines sugar cookies for our treat.  It was a short trip, but great to see family and let them meet little Sophie.  

Flower Girl

The other day I had walked down the hall into Allie's room to put something away.  As I walked back the other way, I passed Allie's bathroom only to notice some flowers on the counter top.  I did a double take trying to figure out where the flowers had come from.  Once I put the pieces together, I chuckled out loud.  Allie asked me what was so funny.  I just thought it was to cute and creative that Allie found my fake flowers, grabbed her plastic Coke bottle from her kitchen, filled it with water and turned it into a vase for the flowers. 

Allie these roses made my day!  You are too cute and I love having you around.

Monkey See Monkey Do

Weeks 2 and 3 of Allie's climbing class have been great.  Allie and her fearless behavior (an acquired Hudson trait) that I'm sure will fade over time, helped her quickly make it to the top of the wall and ladder.  These last two weeks the kids have started out on the ladder and then have worked on climbing the wall for the remainder of class.

Allie's first time on the wall.  She quickly scaled up the wall during week 2

Doing well spider woman

Getting herself to the top.  About one year ago we came as a family to climb on a Saturday and it freaked me out to be at the top.  Allie struggled a tiny bit when she got about 75% up the wall,  but with a little coaxing she made it to the top.

Allie made it up the wall two times during week 2 and was able to ring the bell.  During week 3 the kids moved to a more difficult part of the wall and Allie made it 90% up but didn't quite make it to the top.  I am so impressed at how well the Allie has progressed and how her confidence and trust in the teacher has grown in such a short amount of time. Way to go!

New Heights

Max recently turned 2 and something must be wired in a cat to tell them to climb high as they age and acquire a no-fear mentality.  I now laugh at the cartoons where you see cats stuck up in trees, needing a fireman on a ladder to get them out.  Max is a climber and if we had tall trees around, I'm positive he would be in them.  Lately I've been finding him in every high place imaginable in our house.

Max figured out how to get on top of our bookcases in our office.  Blake ended up moving his bed up there because he enjoyed it so much

And here is Max enjoying his spot in the corner on top of my cupboards.  Yes, Max had to climb on my counters to jump up there and I was so mad he was up there.  I did a deep wipe down of my counters following Max's nap up there.  Oh Max, we love you!

Warming Up

One of my fondest memories from when I was a little was curling up and laying over the heaters during the cold winter months.  I remember coming inside from the cold outside and stripping down to my long johns and laying down as the warm heat would blow through the vent.  Well, one morning Allie was telling me how she was so cold as we came downstairs and I proceeded to tell her my love for the heater vents when I was little and she just loved that idea.  Now, almost every morning Allie comes down and sits on the heater while I am making breakfast to warm herself up.  A lot of times she ends up staying put on the heater and eats breakfast in this spot.  Max also loves to get warmed up this way so Allie and him end up sharing the heater together most mornings.  It's so fun to tell Allie about things from my childhood, she just thinks I did the funnest things and loves to try them out.

The duo warming up for the morning

Rock Climber

After Allie's ballet class, Allie wanted to be done with dance for awhile (with the exception of her dance camp).  Allie really wanted to try out gymnastics and karate.  I am not totally opposed to these options that she has chosen but I just think of the years we have ahead and the cost of the activities that she will really want to participate in when she's older.  So, I looked into some activities that we are able to experience at the YMCA where we have a membership and discount to the activities because of our membership.  Allie was more than thrilled when I told her that she was going to be in a Monkey Climb class.



My little monkey with her harness.  Allie has been my monkey from a very early age so I knew she would just love this four week class

We told Cam and Brynn to come and join us for the class, it's always better with cousins right?



The first day the kids just worked on climbing up the ladder and gaining confidence in this area



And before I knew it, Allie was quickly half way up

The best part after climbing up the ladder was getting a BIG swing ride after.  Way to go my monkey girl!